


Purifying Fire: Ash and Embers

by AwesomePossum



Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Medium Burn, purifying fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 18:09:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20511272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomePossum/pseuds/AwesomePossum
Summary: After fleeing Kephalai to Diraden, Chandra and Gideon find themselves trapped in the dungeons of the cursed Lord Velrav. When they are separated, Chandra struggles to think of a way to save herself and Gideon and escape the plane, before it's too late. [Rewrite of Chapters 14-15 of Purifying Fire.]





	Purifying Fire: Ash and Embers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gamb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamb/gifts).

> I got into the fandom recently and have been reading my way through the Gatewatch saga, and in the novel Purifying Fire, it felt like things got...wonky, in Chapter 14. I felt that the story to that point had been moving toward more of a romance between Gideon and Chandra, and that the final confrontation with Velrav felt rushed and kind of disjointed. So this is the rewrite. Enjoy!

“I brought you something.” Her movements hindered by the shackles, Chandra awkwardly reached into the sash of her dress and pulled out a handkerchief folded around two buns. She held out the handkerchief bundle to Gideon through the bars of his cell. “They’re not great,” she said resignedly, “and whatever syrup they put on them is too sweet and sticks in your mouth, but…” She shrugged.

Gideon gave a small gesture, waving the proffered buns away. “You should have them. They’re actually giving me plenty to eat.” He nodded to a generously portioned empty bowl on the floor, still flecked with the remains of his previous meal. “It isn’t the finest food I’ve ever had, but honestly not the worst either. And at least there always seems to be enough of it.” He looked at her, then at the buns, and gave a small frown. “Besides, I’m not all that fond of the breads here.”

Chandra curled her lip at the buns as she tucked them back into the sash. The cloying-sweet syrup stuck in gobs to the fine fabric of the dress Velrav had given her to wear, an expensive red and gold affair that Chandra was sickeningly sure had belonged to his mother, the queen. She had already been pleased to peel off pearls and chips of precious stones from a previous dress to bribe a guard into overlooking her visits down here. Now she spitefully hoped the crumbs and mess would somehow ruin this garment as well. “I have wondered what they’re making the bread with,” she muttered, folding the sash around them. “It always tastes...off, and it isn’t like we’re surrounded by fields of grain.”

Gideon raised an eyebrow. “No one’s told you yet?”

Chandra stopped mid-fold, suddenly feeling the preemptive urge to throw the buns across the room.

“Beeeeeetles!” came the sing-songy voice of the king. “Baking a bread of ground vermin and beetle wheat and the bones of mice, how nice, how nice!”

She looked at Gideon in horror. His expression almost apologetic, he gave a small confirmation nod.

Chandra quickly moved over to the old man’s cells and practically dropped the buns in.

“For me?” he squealed, delighted. When Chandra nodded he fell on the buns, grabbing them up and tearing great gooey chunks off in his knobby fists. “What a lovely dessert - a dessert fit for a king! Ha! A king!” His words descended into a cascade of cackles and wracking coughs as he stuffed handfuls of bread into his bruise-colored, nearly toothless mouth.

Chandra felt her gorge rise and stepped back from the cell, trying very hard not to hear the moist fervor of the mad king gumming down his food. “I feel like I’m going to be sick,” she mumbled.

“You get used to it,” Gideon said prosaically.

It was true enough; the king’s ranting and weeping and fits of laughter were a constant background here in the dungeon. He was the only other living person down here, if he could truly be called living. During brief windows of seeming sanity, they had learned that the blood magic Price Velrav used to lock Diraden in eternal night came from the king, and his curse. The king’s suffering fed the demons maintaining the curse, and so the king needed to be kept alive to maintain it, or at least in a twisted mockery of life. Just thinking of it, a tortured, endless existence knowing nothing but suffering, made Chandra’s blood feel cold and heavy as the mud in the courtyard. 

Doing her best to block out the king’s feasting - and increasingly glad she didn’t know what they were making the syrupy topping out of on a world with no fruits or honey - she turned back to Gideon.

“At least they’re taking care of you,” she said, looking him over. Whatever the quality of the food, he was apparently telling the truth when he said there was enough of it, characteristic lines of muscle still laying firm over his frame. His cuts, both from Jural and his ordeal in the courtyard, were going away as well - once Velrav had decided the planeswalker was more valuable to him alive, he had at least seen to it that Gideon’s wounds were tended and no infection could set in. They had even given him a serviceable if dull blade to shave with, under close supervision of course. Overall, Gideon looked to be healing well and relatively healthy. On the outside at least…

“I suspect it pays to keep the livestock well fatted,” he said, his voice deceptively bland.

Chandra frowned. It had been like this her last several visits. Every time she came to see him, it seemed he was quieter, more withdrawn into stoic reserve, and the slight crease in his brow was nearly constant these days. With each visit he seemed less interested in her talk of escape, and more resigned to this place. To the possibility of not leaving. Or of him not leaving, at least - he had suggested several times that she should get herself out if an opportunity presented itself. 

She straightened and squared her shoulders. Not only did that line of thinking lead nowhere, but she wasn’t about to back down from a fight, especially not with a ponce bully like Velrav. It didn’t matter what Gideon thought: she was going to get out of here, get both of them out. Not only because she was hardly going to leave Gideon behind but because she’d be damned if she’d let Velrav win. Chandra was determined that this would end with both of them walking out into a free Diraden with Velrav’s plans, and hopefully Velrav himself, in ashes behind them. 

She just needed to figure out how.

“What about you?” Gideon said, jerking her out of the hot bliss of a revenge fantasy. “Has Velrav...are you being treated all right?”

“Well enough,” she said. In truth, Velrav was a constant irritation, popping up everywhere to mince around and mock her. She was also certain that at times she felt his eyes on her even when he wasn’t around, as if the tomb-like castle kept watch on her for its dark master. But while he was as slimy and snake-like as the Enervants on Kephalai had been, if only marginally better smelling, he had not yet made any physical overtures. _ No, he’s content with baiting and mind games_, Chandra thought, grinding her teeth. One day - one day soon - she would find an opportunity and make him regret all the indignities he had forced on her.

She felt an itch at her back and tried to reach it to scratch, tugging the material this way and that but unable to find a comfortable arrangement for the heavy cloth strapped tightly around her body. _ Every indignity including the dresses. Especially the dresses. _

“Chandra,” he said, the seriousness of his voice pulling her back once again. “I think you should reconsider getting yourself out of here.”

She snorted, dismissive. “That’s loser’s talk.”

He sighed. “No, it’s a realistic assessment of our situation. You have to accept that if you wait for a chance to get me out, the most likely outcome is both of us dying instead of one of us. I know you don’t like it, but you need to realize that you can’t do anything for me - ”

“Not with that attitude,” she snapped. “And I don’t _ have to _accept anything! I understand you’re going to sit here and mope, because what else do you have to do? But I’m not just going to give up, not when there’s still time to figure things out. I mean, we’re both alive, we’re both in...” she looked down at herself, in an expensive gown and shackles, “...acceptable condition. Sure, we don’t have our magic, but we’ll figure something out.” 

“We may not be in immediate danger,” he said, shaking his head, “but we’re certainly not safe here, and whatever time you might have to get out is slipping away while you wait for a chance to get _ me _ out. Chandra, you have to know when you’ve been beaten.”

“_ No!” _ Her face pulled into a snarl, and even without red mana she felt her blood heat. It was good; the sensation forged her resolve like a new sword, burning away hesitation and doubt. _ And fear, _a small voice in her mind whispered. 

“I’m not going to let some pompous creep like Velrav beat me,” she growled. “Not today, not ever. I’ve taken on worse and come out fine on the other side, and I’m going to figure out a way to burn him down like everyone else who’s tried to break me.”

“This isn’t about your pride, Chandra.” Gideon’s voice was infuriatingly steady, his brown eyes serious. “This is about your life.”

“What life?” Chandra snapped, her voice raising with her temper. Even locked up in a cell, he was infuriating. Why did he have to act so damned reasonable, like he was lecturing a child about bedtimes and snacks, rather than talking about submitting quietly to slaughter? “What life would I have, if I escaped? Would I just skulk around Diraden in the shadows forever, eating grubs and watching my back, waiting to die of old age in the dark if none of Velrav’s lackeys get me first? Or assuming that some backwoods lout is eventually going to eat me because they think my blood and pretty red hair will cure goiters or something equally stupid?”

“At least you would be alive,” he said quietly - although he sounded a little less certain now. “As long as you’re alive, you can wait for another opportunity…”

She snorted. “Even you know that’s not a life worth having. Besides, you’re being ridiculous - we’re here in the castle, close enough that we can get Velrav right where we want him. I’m going to figure something out, and we’re going to leave here, _ together,_ after we put an end to the curse and burn this place to the ground. We just need a little bit of luck.”

“How unfortunate then, that you’re fresh out.”

Chandra whirled at the sound of the oozing voice, and saw Gideon rise with startling swiftness in his cell. Prince Velrav was draped languidly in the dungeon doorway, four of his undead thralls in armor at his back. Gideon’s sural hung looped at his belt, where he had taken to wearing it like a trophy. His corpse-dark lips were curled into an indulgent smile, but underneath it his face was hard. He raised an eyebrow. 

“Surprised to see me?” He gave an amused little chuckle and sauntered forward. Chandra stiffened, refusing to give him the satisfaction of backing away. He came uncomfortably close to her before halting, close enough that she could smell the strange, cloying sweet smell of his breath, like rotting flowers. For a moment, they locked eyes, and she stared back with all the contempt she could muster, willing him to burst into flames under the heat of her gaze alone. 

Without warning, his hand shot out like a serpent and locked hard around her jaw. Chandra made an involuntary noise of surprise - his grip was supernaturally strong - and grabbed at his hand, but it was like trying to move stone. From the corner of her eye, she saw Gideon move up and grab the bars, tight-lipped and clearly trying to control himself. Velrav’s eyes slid to the side and back; clearly he noticed too. He gave a malicious little smile and Chandra felt his hand tighten even further, his fingers digging through her cheeks until it felt like the bone underneath must be dented. Chandra tried her best to bite back any sound even as her eyes watered with pain. Velrav turned to Gideon. 

“Something you’d like to say?” Gideon’s face darkened, and his eyes met Chandra’s for a brief helpless moment, but he stayed silent. Velrav widened his eyes in mock surprise. “No? How about _ now _?” Without even a hint of strain, he raised his arm, lifting Chandra off the ground. She would normally have been ashamed at the cry that escaped from her, but she was too busy trying to make the pain stop, scrabbling to get her tiptoes under her to take some of her weight, any of it, while she clung desperately to his arm with the loud clatter of shackle chains. She heard Gideon yell at Velrav to stop, but she could barely hear it over her own pained noises and the rush of blood hammering in her ears. 

Just when she thought her jaw would shatter under his unyielding grip, Prince Velrav dropped her unceremoniously to the floor. She landed in a heap on the damp straw-strewn cobblestone, her head ringing as she tried to reorient herself. Velrav sneered down at her, his mouth turned up and his eyes grave-cold.

“You should never be surprised to see me, you mewling little worms,” he said, his tone black and edged like volcanic glass. “This is _ my _ castle, _ my _ land, _ my _ world - I know _ everything _that goes on in my home, from the most distant pool of stagnant ichor to my own bedchamber. I killed and enslaved my own family to control this realm, and you think you two are a threat to me? You two are nothing but filthy vagrants here, who live or die by my grace alone.” He looked sidelong at Gideon. “Speaking of which…”

Velrav snapped his fingers. In perfect unison, the four guards stepped through the doorway, their skin creased and dry like grey leather, their faces expressionless.

“It has come to my attention,” he said, placing his hand to his chest in feigned injury, “that you have been most ungracious guests. That you have repaid my hospitality with plotting and scheming.” 

He stood for a moment like an actor posing for applause. When none came, he frowned a little, pulling his mouth into a slight pout. Then he abruptly lashed out with a finely-made boot, polished to a mirror shine, and caught Chandra hard in the gut. She retched as the concussion force of it burst through her and instinctively locked her body into a ball, gritting her teeth as tears crept from her eyes. Gideon was clearly enraged, but he had trouble of his own; through a haze of red and black starbursts she saw the four guards unlock his cell and move in on him with eerie silence.

“You’ve been slithering around down here like a nest of vipers, planning the most nefarious things,” Velrav continued, ignoring Chandra’s wet gasps and Gideon’s grunts as they began dragging him out of his cell. “So I’ve decided that two of you is simply more than I need. Of course,” he said, crouching down to where Chandra was still writhing on the floor, “you will stay at my side as my fiery consort while we travel the universe. But I’m afraid your bounty hunter here is proving more of a nuisance than a help. So we’ll see what power I can bleed out of his corpse.” 

“No!” Chandra choked out, fear and rage flaring up in her chest as she tried to get to her feet, tried to land a blow on the Prince with her shackled hand. With a cruel laugh, her shoved her back down to the ground.

“Yes,” he hissed in response. “You’d be amazed what intangible qualities you can harvest from the blood with the proper...instruments. And if it fails to produce results, at the very least I think it will motivate you to be more forthcoming during our long future together.” 

Velrav turned and walked up to the guards, who were holding Gideon in position. Chandra could see where their withered, unfeeling fingers dug into his flesh, bruises already blooming under his tan skin. Velrav made a delicate gesture; one of the guards grabbed Gideon’s thick, dark hair in a grey fist and yanked, pulling the Planeswalker’s head backward and exposing his neck. Gideon didn’t make any noise except for an small grunt, and Chandra saw him steel himself against whatever was coming, deliberately avoiding looking at Velrav, standing stoic and motionless but for his pulse flashing in his throat. With a twisted smile aimed at Chandra, Velrav lifted a loop of the sural blade and slid the razor-thin plane slowly across Gideon’s neck, drawing a thin brushstroke of red across the skin beneath the larger man’s jaw. Gideon clenched his teeth, but remained still, clearly trying not to rise to the bait. However, even he couldn’t help but recoil as the prince leaned in and drew his purpling-black tongue across the wound. Gideon tried to move, to flinch back in disgust, but was gripped fast by his hair as Velrav licked the blood away. Velrav turned to Chandra, who could only watch in open revulsion.

“Exquisite,” he murmured, licking his lips. He reached up to derisively pat Gideon’s cheek with an alabaster hand. “It’s been some time since I’ve had such a fine vintage - we will have to make this last, won’t we?” He looked at Chandra. “You’ll be staying here, to keep you out of trouble, but I’m sure you’ll be able to hear the proceedings.” He looked at Gideon and smiled. “Well, once we really get started, at any rate. I’m sure it will give you something to consider while you think on your mistakes.” He narrowed eyes like dark pits. “And consider what fate awaits you if you don’t learn to be a bit more...cooperative.” 

Prince Velrav turned and strode past the guards, snapping his fingers as he walked out of the dungeon, and suddenly they were moving. Taking Gideon away.

“Stop!” Chandra screamed, jumping to her feet and rushing the group as they began dragging the other planeswalker back. In a sudden burst of movement Gideon came to life as well, abruptly throwing a heavy shoulder into the guard and his right and slamming the creature against the stone wall. It momentarily lost its grip and Gideon swung his free arm around in a fierce hook, catching a second guard center mass with blow that wound have broken a normal man’s ribs. As it was the creature went spinning. Chandra launched herself at a third guard, balling the chains on her shackles in her locked fists and bring them down on its face like a hammer, while Gideon leapt at the fourth like a pouncing lion, wrapping his powerful arms around it and bearing it down to the ground. As soon as it hit the floor Gideon slammed a knee onto its chest, pinning it down as he began striking it with his fists. 

Chandra went for a second blow to the head of the guard she faced - but this time it snapped its arm up, blocking her, and grabbed her chained wrists with its free hand. Hauling on the chain, it flung her back and she stumbled, unable to catch her balance with her feet shackled. As she went down, she saw that the first two guards were back on their feet. Injuries that would have taken a living combatant out of the fight were no hindrance to these monsters; half-alive, they felt no pain, no fear, and no remorse. They just kept fighting, inexorable as death itself. Chandra practically crawled to her feet and dove back into the fray as all three standing guards turned on Gideon, burying him in a hail of limbs as hard as ancient deadwood; as she tried to pull one of them off him, she caught a glance of the guard he had pinned down. Its face was noticeably broken, one eye socket entirely caved in, jaw hanging loose at a gruesome angle. He was literally beating its head in. It just didn’t make a difference.

Two of the guards grabbed one of his arms and pulled him off; the others grabbed him at the waist. Collectively, they were bearing him toward the door.

“Gideon!” she yelled, grabbing his other arm, pulling the opposite direction with all her strength even as she knew it was useless. Gideon leaned in as if to grip her, to try to resist. Chandra felt him slide something heavy into the folds of her sash, the same way she had been smuggling food down to him. Their eyes met, and despite the frenzy around them, his gaze was as quiet as ever.

“_Get yourself out_,” he whispered intently.

He let go.

“No!” Chandra yelled. But Gideon had stopped fighting, was letting them carry him out without resistance now. Forgetting her shackles, she tried to run and tripped when she hit the end of the chain, reaching out for him even as she fell to the floor. With the four guards unimpeded, they had him out of the room before she could even get close. She caught a last glimpse of his face, his expression something both fierce and indefinably sad...and then he was gone. The door slammed behind him, accented with grim finality by the turning of a key in the heavy lock, and she was left sprawled on the floor. Reaching for an empty space.

“No,” she whispered, stunned. A second later, everything flooded in on her, hatred and terror and shame, and she launched herself at the door, pounding on it with her chained fists, screaming out threats and pleas and eventually just noise. All that answered were echoes. Howling in frustration, she reached out around her for a mana source, anything to fill with her fury and ignite. She would torch this castle, _ this world_, into ashes and char, immolate it on a pyre of her rage, and burn burn burn until nothing was left…

A sob jerked out of her chest.

But there was already nothing left.

A low sound, like the mournful cry of a loon, echoed in the dungeon. “Gone, gone,” the mad king sang miserably, a deep keening sound filled with emptiness. “Everything gone into a black heart, a hollow soul, swallowing up all the light in the world. A gone-song for the lost, for us.”

A dark wave of terrible loneliness enveloped her. There was no way out. She would be trapped here for the rest of her life, lost to all her friends, and more, cut off from the mana that flowed through her like a first love. Worst of all, Gideon was going to be killed. And now the small voice crept in, the one she had been pushing back for days with anger and stubborness. _ He’s going to die because of me. _Because she had stolen the scroll. Because she had destroyed the Sanctum. Because she had come here. Because of her actions and her stupid, hot-headed decisions, he was being dragged away to slaughter right now, and she would die on Diraden, in the dark, alone.

Chandra slumped numbly to the floor, the thick cloth of the dress bunching against the wood of the door. As she did, she felt a shifting weight in her sash. It took a long moment to register - she could barely feel her own body, the stinging sensation of the rough scratches and cuts where she had beaten her hand against the door - but it finally dawned on her to see what Gideon had given her. She reached into her sash.

Her fingers touched cold metal.

Drawing the item out, she stared in shock. It was a key ring, one of the sets the undead castle staff carried. Mind whirling, she replayed the struggle with the guards. Gideon had attacked them, but on examination he hadn’t tried to run... Her own breathing grew loud in the silent dungeon as realized came crashing over her like a landslide. Of course he hadn’t tried to run. He had accepted his own death from the beginning, since she first started visiting him. But not hers. She raced through memories of their conversations, all of them leading to one conclusion from Gideon: that she needed to leave him and escape. _ But I would never do that, as long as we were both - _Chandra swallowed hard, her throat dry. As long as they were both alive. But if he knew that if he were to die, then she would be willing to leave. So he had fought, made a show of fighting, as a cover to steal a spare set of keys and get them to her. With crystalline clarity, she remembered his last words.

_ Get yourself out. _

For moments that stretched like hours, Chandra sat against the door, shaking. _ He’s not just going to die because of me - he’s going to die _ for _ me. _It felt like everything inside of her had gone completely still.

Then her fingers moved. Twitched. Balled into tight fists. Glaring out into the empty dungeon, Chandra felt the fire in her heart spark back to life, then roar up into an inferno. Body trembling with unchecked emotions, she got to her feet. It wouldn’t end this way, because she wouldn’t _ let _ it. She was Chandra Nalaar, fire incarnate, the greatest pyromancer since Jaya Ballard - and right now, the most dangerous person in the Multiverse. 

She ground her teeth, feeling the ache in he jaw where Velrav had grabbed her. The pain was good, stoking her anger, honing her. For days, it had been talking, planning, arguing - no more. Now it was time to act. And if there was one person who knew the value of action over words, it was her.

A quick check revealed that the key ring had an array of door keys, but not the small key that unlocked her shackles. Chandra snorted contemptuously. As if that would stop her - she’d just have to improvise. Obviously she’d been thinking of how to get the shackles off since the moment they went on; she’d actually had an idea days ago, but with no way to get Gideon out there hadn’t been any reason to try it. Now the situation had changed, and finally, _finally_, she could start doing something about all this. 

Tucking the keys back into her sash for now, Chandra made her way as quickly as she could over to a wall sconce and removed the torch. She sat down and held the handle between her knees, ignoring the singeing smell of the fabric as it began to smolder, and brought the shackle on her right hand directly over the flame. She grimaced a little. Normally nothing short of a volcano could do her any harm, but apparently some of that resistance was predicated on having a steady supply of red mana flowing through her body. Now, the torchfire stung a bit as she put her wrist up to the flame. She bit her lip and let the sensation move through her, let it become a source of focus. Honestly, it was better than the dull, crushing nothingness that permeated this place, and it helped to remind her what they had done to her dignity, and what she was going to do to take it back. She smiled grimly. _ With interest. _

Reaching up to her throat with her other hand, she felt for the cord tied around the chunk of fire quartz that Brannon had given her when she left home, a time that felt years away now. Pulling it over her head, she held the small orange prism in the torch’s flame.

On Regatha, fire quartz was so common the no one paid it any mind - it was nothing more than a trinket. But it came from the heart of burning mountains, and carried a memory of red mana in its core. Its power was unnoticeable at home for the way it disappeared into the churning background fires of mana, but here it could be just enough. She held her breath as she extended her senses…

And actually laughed with relief when she felt a tiny spark of red mana ignite within the stone. It was miniscule, but concentrated, and it could be enough. She felt herself pulled toward it as a man in the desert is pulled toward the smell of water. Placing the tip of the crystal to the pin holding her shackles shut, she made herself calm down, forced herself to breath slowly, and _ focused _as hard as she could. Her fingers and hands stung, submerged in flame, but she held steady, letting the fire fill the tiny stone with what mana it could hold, then squeezing it tight, forcing it down to a pinprick of of white-hot fire. 

Tiny incandescent sparks began to flash of the tip of the stone, producing a small cut in the black metal of her shackle. It would never have made a dent in something heavier, like the thick locks on the doors, but on the the thin loops of her shackles it was just enough. She grinned despite her discomfort and bore down, bathing the stone in flame to refill it and burning through another sliver of metal. It was slow going, like filling a bucket with a thimble, and she had to keep her attention on the torch to prevent it from extinguishing as she drained its meager flame for power, but it was working. Fraction by infuriating fraction, she burned her way through her bonds. Frustratingly slow or not, it was good to be burning something again - and the intense focus it required kept her mind off Gideon. Mostly.

_ Just hold on, _ she thought to herself as the first shackle came loose and she shifted to her left wrist. _ I’m coming for you. _ She scowled blackley, thinking of the prince and his sadistic taunting. _ And for everyone else too--I’ve got a score to settle. _

In longer than she’d liked but shorter than she hoped, Chandra’s last shackle fell from her foot. She was sweating with the effort of concentration required to do any mana work at all here, but she supposed it didn’t matter. There wasn’t nearly enough red mana available to do anything offensive anyway... 

She looked around and saw the shoddy table at the end of the hall, the one the guards used to hold meals and utensils for prisoners. On it lay the blade they allowed Gideon for shaving. She walked over and picked it up, examining it. It was dull - she had a sudden random twinge of pity for Gideon having to use the damn thing - but it was long-ish at least, with a six inch blade, and was sturdily built. She tightened her grip on the handle. It would have have to do. 

She wrapped the cord of her fire quartz around the handle, securing the crystal flush against the dull metal of the blade, and held it up into the fire of another torch on the wall. Bearing down with the last of her magical strength, she forced heat and fire into the blade, watching as it shifted to red, then orange, then finally near-white like a brand. Satisfied, she pulled it out of the fire and gave a few experimental swipes, strangely pleased by the streaks of phosphorescent white it carved across her vision. There was very little here to work with, but she was confident that, with the quartz as full as she could make it, her spellwork could keep the metal hot for ten or fifteen minutes at least. She slashed at the air with a wicked smile.

_ Plenty of time to give a few lessons in respect - for fire, and for me. _

A wet cackle made her nearly jump out of her skin. In all the effort, she had completely forgot about the mad king, who now watched her swinging the hot knife through the bars of his cage. Recovering from her startlement, Chandra remembered that she had the keys; a moment’s fumbling produced the right one for the cells and she turned it with a high creak of protest, swinging the king’s cell door open.

“Go, if you can,” she told him. He rolled his mad eyes, fogged blue like a corpse’s, and his head lolled wildly. Chandra frowned. “Come on old man - this is your chance.” She stepped backward out of the way, trying to wave him through the door as she might shoo a cat out of the house. He began rocking back and forth, singing nonsensically under his breath. “Come on!” She pushed the door open as far as it could go. “Look, you can get out of here, or you can stay in there and rot for all I care, but I have to go save Gideon.”

“Save Gideon?” He tilted back his head and cackled raucously. “Save him just to die, you know it to be true. Fire-hair, there is no safe. Not with the curse over us.” 

Chandra was surprised by his response - he had moments of lucidity, but rarely this direct. “What are you-”

“Diraden is decay and black and rot underneath the floors and behind the walls,” he said in a low, sing-songy voice. “It eats nothing but death and you feed it death to keep it from eating you next. No escape, no rescue - nothing under the shadow-curse.” He grinned widely at her, a rictus showing his few remaining teeth. “You can’t save anyone, unless you save everyone.”

“Dammit, I don’t have time for this,” Chandra growled.

“Endless time, trapped here forever in the dark,” he wheezed back. “What will you do, with your forge-hot knife? Cut at the faces and flesh and bones?” He shook his head, chuckling like a wet breeze. “Nothing, all nothing - hacking at dead branches when the whole tree is blighted. And what does the loving orchardist do when his tree is dead and black in the core?” He looked at Chandra, and something in his demeanor caught her, something _ aware, _the last spark of who he had been.

“What does a merciful person do, for a tree that is still standing but already dead?”

Chandra’s mouth was dry. “Burn it down,” she whispered.

He gave a knowing smile and held her gaze, but subtly shifted position so that his chest was pushed forward, exposed. Vulnerable. Chandra looked down at the knife in her hand, and felt sick.

“No - no, I can’t,” she whispered. 

“I don’t believe you,” he breathed, his eyes fever-bright.

“I couldn’t -”

“Couldn’t?” He turned his head, the lines of his jaw and neck cut into harsh angles, and nodded at the knife. “Then why carry that? For fun and fire-dancing?”

“That’s different,” she said quickly. Killing Velrav was a good deed and killing his enforcers was a prerequisite. Killing this miserable old man in a cell was another thing entirely.

“Ah,” he said, his cracked lips splitting into a grin. “Not your first, but the first time you’ve had to think about it. Making death a friend, close enough to talk to and see and touch, close as a lover in a whore’s bed. Never leaves, never leaves, and Diraden demands its death.”

He was right. She had killed people - gods knew how many in the Sanctum of Stars alone - but that was in the heat of the moment, the fires of battle. Standing here now, it was so still, and quiet. There was no fighting, no threat, no fiery rush of anger to block out her thoughts. Nothing but a small dark room, a frail, helpless thing before her, and a searing knife in her hand. The thought flashed in her mind, of the blistering knife sinking into atrophied white flesh, filling her head again with the stench of burning bodies, and her stomach churned.

“It isn’t right, it isn’t _ fair _-” she whispered.

“Fair is fair,” he murmured. “Life for life, blood demands blood.”

“I don’t…” But she did. And he knew it.

“You cannot ignore deaths here, when they are the only bright-burning in a lightless place. Diraden will have its death, one way or another. Choose to let it have your friend, or offer it something better - sacrificial lamb or burnt offerings are one to Diraden. It matters only to you. You must know, and knowing choose the death.”

Chandra was shaking now, her hand clenched around the knife handle to keep from dropping it, her body aching with tension. Facing the choice to decide who would die, holding lives in her hands, she was horrified. Not because she couldn’t decide - but because she could. And because deep down, she had known what she would do from the moment the king spoke. After all, she was Chandra Nalaar, hot headed, fierce, stubborn.

She never backed down.

As if watching someone else do it, Chandra crept across the cell floor to where the old man sat. Close up, his skin was so pale it was nearly transparent, like the translucent frogs in the mountain caves of Regatha, who never saw the light of day. She could see the thread of every blue-purple vein, could see the blood pumping sluggishly through pale limbs, and at the center of his chest, a barely-visible lump of dark tissue slowly pulsating, sustaining his macabre semblance of life. She had thought she would feel something more as she raised the knife, and some distant part of her was disgusted to note that she felt only a grim necessity, as if preparing to cauterize a wound.

Then she touched the knife to his chest, and he screamed. Somehow she had thought that his acceptance of death would make the process quiet, clean, and the desperate animal shriek as the hot metal melted his skin caught her unprepared. He jerked back, moving away from the blade by instinct; she reflexively caught his shoulder to hold him still and mechanically tightened her grip when he fought, feeling insect-fragile bones twitching under gelatinous skin, her head filled with how loud the scream was, how someone would hear them, stop them, how it would all be for nothing. Panic surged so high that it burst through, and everything inside her went flat and dead. Pushing her full weight down, she leaned on the knife until his flesh parted underneath and the entire blade slid home.

The thrust brought her face next to his, so she could clearly see the skin of his sunken cheeks clinging to the contours of his mouth, open wide in a gasp of shock. He feebly pulled at the air, his chest heaving so that the knife handle bobbed like a boat on choppy waves. There was a broken wheezing sound. Then, paper thin words fluttered out of the dark mouth like moths. 

“Diraden makes every death a part of you.” 

A wet hiss of escaping air. The weight of the body slumping forward into her. The searing knife sizzling and popping inside the wound. The smell curled into her nostrils, and she was a thousand worlds away, surrounded by charred bodies and burnt blood. Like water surging into the empty space of a collapsing bubble, horror and sorrow and revulsion rushed back in to the pit of her stomach.

Doubling over, Chandra vomited on to the straw floor of the cell.

Her guts heaved until there was nothing left, and she spat the lingering bitter taste out as she gagged and gasped for air. She realized she was crying, her face wet with tears running down her chin, mixing with snot and spit and sickness. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to regroup, to focus. 

_ No, _ she thought disjointedly, swiping the fine sleeve of her dress across her face. _ There isn’t time. _She took the mad king and shoved him down in her thoughts, out of the way. She still had to kill Velrav, get Gideon, and probably fight her way through a bunch of lackeys in order to do it - this was no time for mourning or weeping or sitting around thinking and being helpless. It was a relief, really. She balled her hands into fists and got to her feet.

_Now isn’t the time for thinking._ _Now is the time to get mad._

Trying not to look at the corpse, she pulled out her knife, still bright and crackling. It came loose with sickening ease; out of the corner of her eye she could see that without magic to sustain him, the king’s corpse was going soft with decay at a rapid pace, as eighty years of rot were catching up with him in an instant. Knife gripped tight in her hand, she ran from the king’s cell to the dungeon door - as much to get away from what she had done as to continue her escape, though she told herself otherwise. The skirts of her elegant dress were in the way; she gathered them into a bunch and sliced them off with the knife in one searing stroke, ignoring the embers that crawled on the burned hem. 

As Chandra fumbled the keys out and unlocked the heavy bolt to the door, she realized there were noises coming from the castle above, wails and howls and animal cries. Alarm sparked in her, helping to focus her thoughts, creating a kind of heighted clarity. She could feel a change happening in the castle, in the very air. Killing the mad king had ended the curse, but it had not simply vanished - after being part of Diraden for so long, it was embedded in the very plane, and was being ripped loose like a hunter stripping the pelt off an animal. Here, apparently even a curse could have death throes. 

Which meant there was probably still opposition in the castle.

Chandra tightened her grip on the knife handle. It seemed that nothing was ever easy.

She opened the door and ran out into the halls, ready for anything. She knew where the prince would have taken Gideon. In wandering the castle, she had come across a strange circular room that occupied the base of the castle’s central tower. Going inside had filled her with an overwhelming sense of dread, and she had left almost immediately. But she remembered what she had glimpsed: white lines drawn on the floor in salt, describing overlapping circles and intricate, unsettling geometry anchored by candles. Ominous grooves carved into the stone floor, as if to channel some sort of best-unknown runoff. And in the center, an upright wooden table with straps and restraints - large enough to hold a person, and so covered in dark stains that its original color was lost. 

It couldn’t more obviously screamed “ritual room” if there was a plaque on the door.

As Chandra rounded a corner, she nearly collided with one of the castle’s undead guards. Immediately the knife was up as she swiped at the thing’s face, hoping to catch it off-guard and overwhelm it before it could react. However, it turned out to be moot: the creature was clutching at itself, clawing its own skin and moaning, not even noticing her when she scored a burnt line across its leathery cheek. Up close, Chandra could see black, oily vapor seeping from lesions in its skin like gangrenous sores. As she watched, the thing turned toward the wall, reared back, and smashed its head into the stone, howling. Chandra took a step back, and then another, but the thing was clearly so wrapped up in...whatever was happening to it, that it didn’t even react to her. Still surprised to be unimpeded, she took off again.

_ That was a mess, _ she thought, racing up a flight of stairs. On the landing she saw another one of the guards, this one curled in the fetal position and making a noise like a rusty iron gate, black vapor streaming out of its mouth like a profane tea kettle. Clearly, ending the curse had affected the magics fueling these creatures. Chandra leapt over it without breaking stride and continued her race up the stairs, the creature rolling insensate behind her. _ But at least my luck is finally changing for the better! _

Two more hallways and one flight of stairs later - all littered with the disintegrating undead - and the door to the ritual chamber was in sight, slightly ajar. Everything else vanished as she honed in on the door. Reaching inside of herself, she found a core of incandescent anger. This was the person who had imprisoned her in this castle, who had imprisoned her on Diraden, had killed his family and condemned all his people to an endless, hopeless night. This was the person who had taken Gideon.

He deserved what he was about to get. 

Getting a running start down the corridor, Chandra charged. She slammed into it shoulder first; even heavy as it was it crashed open under her weight. She stumbled with the impact, rolled, and came her feet with the knife in front of her.

Gideon was there, strapped onto the sacrificial slab, bound at the waist, limbs, and throat. They’d taken torn open his shirt to the navel to get better access for whatever nefarious things they were doing, and he looked painfully exposed. Chandra’s eyes went to his left forearm, where a lattice of intersecting cuts fed a sheet of bright crimson streaming down his hand. She blanched. _ That’s a lot of blood. _

“Chandra, on your left!”

Chandra knew better than to waste time looking and jumped to the side as soon as she heard Gideon’s warning. Just in time, as she heard the thin whistle of something moving fast through the air behind her. Whatever it was snagged the tattered end of the dress, tugging at it as Chandra spun to face her attacker.

Velrav stood a dozen paces away. His body was heaving as if he had just finished some intense exertion, shoulders rolled forward like a predator. Trickles of dark ichor ran from the corners of his eyes, which themselves had gone a complete inky black. One open hand had fingers curled like talons, twitching. The other held Gideon’s sural, now adorned with tatters of Chandra’s dress. He bared his teeth at her in a snarl, showing pointed canines and a mouth smeared with blood. Chandra realized with disgust that he had been feeding on Gideon.

“_ You.” _ He spat the word out like poison. “You ruined _ everything!” _

With a shriek of rage he swung the sural at her. His aim was wild, with nothing like Gideon’s precision, and he was clearly weakened with the curse falling away. But psychotic anger was replacing supernatural strength, and even his untrained flailing sent the sural blades whipping through the air at a frightening speed. Chandra barely managed to fall back out of the way as they traced a screaming arc through the space between them.

“You couldn’t see the beauty of it all, so you had to tear it all down,” he ranted. “You narrow minded little peon!” With another yell he swung the sural, driving her further back. She tried to angle closer to the Gideon, hoping the ritual table could shield her or provide some cover. _ But that would make Gideon an easy target. _Clenching her jaw in frustration, Chandra considered her options. She looked down at the knife, and saw to her dismay that the magic was wearing off, and it had faded from a white brand to a dull ember-red. 

“Chandra. No, don’t look,” Gideon intoned quietly, stopping her when she would have turned toward him. “Watch him move. You can rush him right after he finishes a swing, or when he draws back to strike if you’re fast enough. Stay low; use your arm to block. It’s not a close-quarters weapon, and the closer you are to him the less power it will have.”

Chandra gave a miniscule nod and got forward onto the balls of her feet, ready to move. _ As soon as he finishes the next strike, I’ll rush him, _ she thought, _ take him down to the ground and get the weapon away. _

Oblivious to the exchange, Velrav was still raving like a madman. “This is all your fault,” he hissed. “You couldn’t just mind your place. You would have been my favorite, but you chose this glorified hireling!” His face twisted like his mind, stretching into a grotesque smile. “At least I’ll get the pleasure of taking something from you like you did to me.” 

Chandra saw what was going to happen, saw the prince’s arm move back, sural coils hissing along the floor as his gaze shifted from her to Gideon, painfully exposed. And in the space of a heartbeat, something inside her finally snapped. 

Rage that had been simmering for days surged through her limbs, burning and familiar. It filled her chest with fire, shot through her limbs to her fingers and toes, brought heat rushing to her face. With a sudden burst of ferocity she sprinted forward, knife clutched in her fist, running at the prince like a charging lion. She saw the blades swinging forward in her peripheral vision, curving toward Gideon, and realized they were closing the distance faster than she was. With a furious roar, she threw herself across the last few feet and crashed bodily into Velrav.

They both went down in a heap, tumbling across the stone floor. Chandra felt the knife sink in somewhere and heard a sharp gasp from Velrav; then the handle was ripped from her hand. Shallow cuts opened in places where she became tangled in the loose sural blades as they rolled across the stone floor. They didn’t matter. New pain only drove the blaze inside of her to fresh heights. And with no red mana to use as a release, regular violence would have to suffice. 

Barely oriented after the fall, she saw a glimpse of Velrav’s face and swung an elbow at it. It connected with a satisfying crunch and an even more satisfying yelp of pain. Chandra actually laughed at him then - but the laugh turned to a yelp of her own as teeth sharpened to points sank into her forearm. The heavy fabric of the dress blunted the bite a little, but there was still a vicious spike of pain as he tore through the skin and deep into the flesh of her arm. This close she could see herself reflected in the mirror-shine of his black eyes, see the oily shimmer of the liquid that streamed from them like tears, see the blood-flecked spittle around his mouth. She tried to claw at his face with her free hand, but it was caught in his grip before she could make contact. 

Screaming in pain and anger, Chandra reared back and slammed her forehead into his nose with the hardest headbutt she could muster. It hurt - but it hurt him more. Velrav opened his mouth in a howl and Chandra yanked her arm back. For a long moment they scrabbled and grappled, rolling across the stones as each of them tried to push the other away and simultaneously get a good grip. Velrav tried to roll loose and Chandra instinctively locked her legs around him; he hit the floor with a heavy exhalation of breath. However, things went bad almost immediately as, locked together with her now, Velrav twisted her onto the ground beneath him. He was not nearly as strong as he had been, the end of the curse draining much of his physical power, but he was filled with the strength of the truly insane and held her tight. Bucking and wriggling, she was powerless to get away.

“Get off of me you snake!” she shouted, swinging a fist at him. He grabbed her wrist and yanked her arm aside, causing pain to burst from her bite wound, and shifted his weight. She felt his hand wrap around her throat and automatically grabbed for it. Too late, she realized she’d lost what hold she had on him as his other hand joined the first on her neck. Both hands clamped around her throat, Velrav leaned in, pressing his weight onto her. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She tried to twist away, but he gave a quick jerk, cracking the back of her head painfully against the stone floor and sending starbursts through her skull.

“A snake you say?” he hissed, panting hungrily as she flailed at him, beating at his arms, struggling but unable to reach his face, his neck, anything that would offer her advantage. A viscous drop of blackness fell from his face to land wetly on her cheek, where it burned like ice. “Then let us begin the constriction.” He tightened his grip further. “Shall we?”

Spots were blossoming in Chandra’s vision. She could hear Gideon yelling _ something _ in the background, but it seemed distant and was drowned by the tidal noise of her own pulse. Some part of her knew that she had seconds before she couldn’t fight any longer - and that if she lost consciousness here, there would be no waking up. Desperate, she reached out and groped frantically along the ground for a rock, her fallen knife - anything. Her fingers brushed something cold, flexible.

_ The sural. _

Stretching to the limits of her reach, she hooked the whip-blade closer with a fingertip, then closed her fist around it. Her vision was going black now; all she could see was Velrav’s face, as if through a receding tunnel. Fumbling numbly, she threw the coiled blade over the back of his neck, grabbed with her other hand to loop the coil around his throat, and yanked both ends. Hard. 

With a metallic whisper, the bladed noose snapped tight around Velrav’s neck, slicing into pallid skin. Suddenly the pressure on Chandra’s windpipe lessened and she was able to suck in a scant lungful of air as Velrav reached up, startled, to the ribbon of steel now cutting into his own throat. As he leaned back, confusion painted across his face, his weight shifted on top of her. Without hesitation, she swung her knee underneath his chest and shoved upward as hard as she could. Her hands gripped the blade fast, remotely aware of the edges cutting into her palms, as Velrav was forced back from her.

The noose drew tight. 

Velrav’s full weight suddenly sagged down on her as a a torrent of dark wine-colored blood, as chill and thick as swamp water, splashed over her face and chest. Chandra’s vision began to clear, and she saw Velrav’s head lolling away from his torso at an extreme angle, his neck severed completely but for his spine. With an involuntary yell, she shoved the pale corpse off of her body. It flopped heavily onto the floor, the nearly-decapitated head pivoting like a grotesque marionette. Chandra gave it a hard kick for good measure, pushing it away.

“That’s for the dungeon, you bastard,” she rasped as she rolled to her hands and knees. The air seemed to scrape her throat, but she took in one breath after another, lungs filling gratefully even as she lapsed into a fit of coughing. She got up on one knee, then rose shakily to her feet, swaying and dizzy as blood started flowing properly again. She heard a noise in the distance, and took a moment to recognize it was Gideon’s voice. She looked at him, dream-like, and saw that he was yelling. 

It was then that she heard another sound, a low rumbling that seemed to come from everywhere. Something bounced on the floor to her right with a crack; she saw a shattered chunk of masonry clatter across the floor. Around her more pieces of stone and mortar were tumbling down, along with thin stream of ancient dust. Looking dumbly upward, she saw cracks spiderwebbing across the walls and ceiling of the chamber. And far up above her, the pinnacle of the tower seemed to be...moving? She turned to Gideon in confusion, her head swimming, and as the ringing in her ears receded his voice finally became clear enough for her to understand.

“Chandra, this whole place is coming down!” Gideon yelled. “We need to leave, now!”

She blinked. Then her senses came struggling back, protesting all the while. Forcing herself to move, she reached down and scooped up the knife off the floor and ran toward Gideon. Her steps were starting to falter; she gritted her teeth. _ Don’t you dare give out on me now! _Demanding that her body both stay upright and keep going forward, she staggered over to the slab. The knife was only a dull red now, and it stank with the smell of Velrav’s hellish blood cooking on its surface, but it would do. She started sawing furiously at the restraint on Gideon’s uninjured arm, vaguely aware of Gideon saying something encouraging but in no condition to hear it. Her mind was drifting, thoughts drifting through something syrupy and warm.

_ Come on come on come on… _

Finally, the leather strap gave way under her blade. Without asking, Gideon took the knife from her and began slicing through the other straps holding him. Normally Chandra would have protested that she didn’t _ need _ help, and that she was perfectly capable of cutting restraints on her own, thank you very much. But she was suddenly very tired, and felt she should just lean against the slab for a quick rest, take a little breather. Slumping against the slab - _ not slumping, just leaning against it - _she watched Gideon cutting himself loose. He went through the process with much less sawing and effort than she had. She notice he had a set of three fresh cuts across his chest; Velrav must have managed to at least graze him with the sural. They didn’t look serious, but she felt bad about that, and about his lacerated forearm. She wished she had managed to get here and take that oily bastard down sooner. Still, Gideon seemed to be doing well enough. In a dreamy haze, she watched the muscles in his arm coiling under tan skin, her mind wandering. 

_ I’ll bet he could pick me up, _ she thought idly. He reached down for the wide leather strap secured his waist; the brick-dull knife bit through it in a smooth, practiced cut. _ Scratch that, he definitely could. _

Chandra barely noticed that he had gotten completely loose until his hands were on her shoulders, pulling her through the chamber. There was a brief pause while Gideon grabbed his sural, and then he had an arm around her waist, half-guiding, half-dragging her out of the ritual room and into the castle proper.

“You’re almost there,” he reassured her, moving them both along as fast as she was able to go. “Just a little further.” She looked up at him to tell him that she was fine, that she was just a little lightheaded and he could let go of her now. Or she meant to to anyway - what came out was more of a mumbled “M’fine” and some other noises that even a generous person wouldn’t call words. She tried to focus on her feet, just continuing to move forward, but it was harder than it should have been. She was aware in a fuzzy way that she was supporting less and less of her own weight, and leaning more and more heavily on Gideon’s arm. _ It’s a good thing he’s holding me up, _she thought. 

They rounded a corner and reached the top of the stairs; looking down, Chandra was suddenly swept up in a wave of vertigo. Unbidden, her feet quit moving and she came to a halt. Gideon stopped alongside her, looked over to see what was wrong.

“Chandra?” 

She wanted to explain it to him, how the stairs were suddenly plummeting straight down in an impossibly steep coil and also the room was kind of tilting? Which seemed weird, but anyway she was pretty sure she couldn’t go down the stairs or she would pitch forward head first and then probably - no definitely - tumble down the infinite stairs forever.

“_ Chandra?” _Gideon had a hand on her face now, turning her to look at him. She pointed, trying to explain.

“Stairs’re bad,” she said, sagging against him a little.

“Okay. Hold on,” he said. Suddenly she was up off the ground and moving, draped by her midriff onto something solid. It took her second to realize Gideon had picked her up across his shoulders and was descending the stairs. Chandra giggled. _ I knew it! _He glanced at her, his brows still knit together, which was silly because they were both free now and Velrav was dead, and everything was going to be fine. No need to worry. 

There was a huge crash behind them; Chandra twisted and saw a boulder of sculpted stone and masonry crash into the stairs behind them. There was a lurch as Gideon stumbled and grabbed the rail, her hips sliding a little without his hand on her legs to hold her steady. Even from Gideon’s shoulders she could feel the building shaking now. She frowned, even though frowning made her head hurt, and reconsidered whether now might still be a time for worrying. 

The creaking groans and ear splitting noise of shattering stone was enough to partially clear her head; when they reached the base of the stairs Chandra wriggled, trying to indicate that she wanted to get down. Gideon seemed to take her meaning because he slid her back to the ground, still keeping an arm on her for support. It was enough. Leaning into him, they both started moving faster. The main entrance was in sight now, and they broke into an awkward loping run for the door. Chandra saw the columns in the foyer splinter across their midline, starting to twist apart and collapse. “Ceiling’s coming down - run!” Gideon yelled. 

Urging her tired body for one last ounce of energy, head and guts and limbs all screaming in protest, Chandra poured on a burst of speed. The columns were shattering now, collapsing down toward the entrance, and she knew, _ knew, _that she wasn’t moving fast enough and she was going to be crushed. Then Gideon was dragging her forward, propelling her, and the columns were falling right for them both. She felt him tense and gather himself as they raced to the doorway and she sensed what was happening. Instinctively, she wrung out the last of her strength and jumped just as Gideon did, both of them just barely leaping clear as the entire structure collapsed behind them. A blastwave of wind struck them in midair and they went tumbling. Chandra felt Gideon wrap his arms around her and pull her tight against his chest…

Then they hit the ground hard. Or rather, Gideon did, protecting her head and chest as they struck the unyielding stone. She felt the impact through his body and heard the grunt of pain as they landed, and then they were rolling across the flagstones of the courtyard. She felt burst of pain along her unprotected lower body as knees and hips slammed into rocky ground. At long last they skidded to a halt, flung akimbo to the cobbles.

For a long time, Chandra lay on the cool, wet stone. Her limbs were suffused with a heavy numbness, and the damp air felt cool on her skin. It was almost soothing. She wondered if she was dead. Then after a moment she felt the bumpy stones of the courtyard pressing uncomfortably into her hips and right shoulder blade and decided that no, she probably wasn’t. 

_ Being dead would have to be more comfortable. _

She heard a groan next to her and saw Gideon sit up, rubbing his shoulder. His sleeve had been ripped off when they landed, and she could see a patch of skin the size of her hand had been scoured open on the stone. She looked over and realized that his hand was still on her arm. She must have made a noise because he turned to look at her, then looked down at his hand. 

“Are you alright?” he asked. He hadn’t let go of her arm.

With a pained groan of her own, Chandra sat up, gingerly touching the back of her head. There was an impressive knot forming under her hair where Velrav had cracked her head against the floor, and her fingers came away with the faint pink tinge of blood. But she would live.

“I think so,” she answered. 

Chandra looked around to get her bearings, and her mouth dropped open.

They were sitting in the center of the castle courtyard - or it had been the castle courtyard, when there had been a castle. Now she found herself staring at mountainous piles of rubble in the vague outline of a castle. Massive stone blocks and huge shards of wood the size of ship masts lay in haphazard piles, tattered banners bearing Velrav’s crest now fluttering weekly among the wreckage. A thin, black vapor rose from the broken edifice, a slickness making it somehow visible even at night. It looked like the fumes that had been leaking out of the undead servants after the curse had broken. After she had…

Chandra shuddered and pushed the thought away, hugging her knees.

“Are you alright?” Startled, she turned to see Gideon looking down at her, a hint of concern showing in his normally reserved mask. Chandra was used to dealing with the catastrophic fallout of her decisions on her own, and for a moment she had forgotten than she wasn’t alone.

“I - yeah, I’m fine. I just...” She put a hand to her face, rubbing her temples, trying to piece together what had happened. It was all cluttered in her brain, a jumble of images and emotions like puzzle pieces sliding around in her head. But she was starting to get a better picture of the last hour or so. She looked at the ragged scuff on Gideon’s shoulder where he had struck the stones, shallow, but certainly uncomfortable. “Um. Thank you,” Chandra said quietly. “For not leaving me.”

He nodded. “Of course. I should be thanking you, for rescuing me.”

His expression was...intense, in its sincerity. It made her feel strange, and a little uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to being the _ solution _ to a problem, let alone being thanked.

“Well, you know.” She shrugged, trying to sound casual. “I figured it would be too much trouble to find another way-too-serious person to follow me around.”

He blinked. Then, to her shock, he started to laugh. Chandra stared, wondering if maybe she wasn’t the only one with a head injury. _ Or maybe I AM dead, and the afterlife is just really surreal. _She had assumed that laughing would make Gideon explode, or something. The stress and fear and anger of the day came rushing in on her, and without knowing why she began to laugh too. Once started, she couldn’t stop. She laughed so hard that every ache and injury stabbed at her, laughed until tears were pouring down her face and her lungs burned for air. At one point she heard a sound like a sob and it took a moment to realize it was coming from her. The sound could have been laughing, crying or somewhere in between. She couldn’t tell. But it seemed like the right noise for how she felt. And when she heard Gideon making the same noise next to her, well, that seemed right too.

_ Hell of a day, _she thought fuzzily.

She looked over at Gideon, wiping tears away from his cheeks. She was surprised at how much laughter softened his normally stern face. Watching him now, she saw that he was much younger than she had initially thought, probably only a few years older than her. Without his austere demeanor he looked less like a soldier on a mission to bring order to the universe, and more like a normal person. Approachable even. Feeling strangely empty now that the danger had passed, Chandra leaned against him.

He flinched away with a sharp intake of breath through his teeth. Suddenly she remembered that his shoulder had half its skin torn off, probably not helped by her bumping against it.

“Sorry, sorry!” she said quickly, backing away. She went to touch the wound, but stopped, unsure of what she could do that wouldn’t make it worse. _ Nice work, idiot - Velrav’s half-killed him; why not just see if you can finish the job? _“I didn’t mean to,” she babbled, “I was just...stupid.” She trailed off, closing her eyes in embarrassment. 

An arm wrapped around her, gentle but sturdy, and pulled her close. Her eyes flew open, but she didn’t move. She didn’t even breathe.

“It’s okay,” he reassured her, the sound coming to her as a low vibration through his chest. “I’m fine. We’re both fine.”

At first Chandra’s body was tense under his arm. But after a moment passed she realized that he was right: they were both okay. And after everything that happened, it felt good to be with someone. She let herself go, releasing everything twisted up inside in a long exhalation, allowing her battered body to sink against him. He was warm and solid, and he smelled of sweat but not in a bad way. In fact, it was kind of nice. She let her head tilt against him where his torn shirt had fallen open, and his chest hair tickled her face a little. 

Also unexpectedly nice. She leaned in further against his exposed chest, nuzzling her cheek against his bare skin.

Gideon coughed. “We should go,” he said quietly. She turned to look up to him, and saw that his face was back to its usual mask of impassivity. Feeling disappointed - and frustrated in a way that was hard to explain or justify - she withdrew from him.

“You’re right,” she said, getting to her feet to put some space between them.

“Someone will want to know what happened, and we don’t know if they’ll be friendly,” he said as he rocked to his feet. “We should-”

“I know,” she said peevishly. She crossed her arms, not caring if she looked like a pouty child. “We should be gone when they get here.”

Gideon looked at her, and it seemed like he might reach out, say something. But after a long pause, he simply nodded. Before setting off he ripped a long strip from the hem of his shirt to bind his wounded forearm; Chandra stood with her back to him, pretending not to notice and declining to help. It seemed like the bleeding had stopped and he wasn’t in danger of dying, so he could just take care of it himself - _ since he clearly doesn’t need me in his precious space. _

Once he was finished, they headed in silence for a part of the collapsed bailey wall that was low enough to climb. As they clambered over the loose stone, Gideon offered her a hand, but Chandra pointedly ignored it. She wasn’t even sure _ why _she was so irritated with him, but that only made it worse, and she forced her tired body to move past him and out to the front to make a point about...something. All of her injuries were making themselves known in force now, and somehow, they all felt a little bit like his fault. She heard him climbing up behind her and glared into the middle distance, resisting the urge to “accidentally” kick a loose stone down at him. 

_ Why is it that every time something gets ruined, Gideon is right in the middle of it? _

As soon as they left what remained of the castle, both planeswalkers could sense a change in Diraden. The first thing Chandra noticed was a shift in the color of night, brighter, less cold. Looking up, she saw that instead of a flat black sheet holding a still, dead moon, the sky was now a reservoir of stars. Towards the horizon, there was a thin ribbon of blue-green shimmering against a dome of night that was no longer black, but deep midnight blue. 

That wasn’t all - for the first time since they had come to Diraden, there was a breeze moving the stagnant air. Instead of the smell of lifeless, eternal rot, it carried a more healthy kind of decay, the smell of leaves turning into forest loam and rich black soil. The everpresent mist was clearing, and the air even felt warmer. Stands of trees that had been foreboding sites of potential ambush just days before now just felt like woodland groves, with nothing sinister lurking under the surface. As they walked, the landscape felt less and less like a world locked in unnatural undeath, and more like a normal forest undergoing natural cycles of living and dying.

And it wasn’t just the environment. When Chandra reached out with her more ethereal senses she could feel a change in the plane itself. She couldn’t yet gather any red mana, but she could feel it now, slowly seeping back into the fabric of this world like a tide coming in. A quick sidelong glance at Gideon told her he was experiencing the same thing, as a tension she hadn’t known was there had fallen away from him and he moved through the boskage with a new ease. Things might not be back to normal yet, but the perverse cloak of stifling black mana was gone. Diraden was healing.

As they travelled, they both decided without speaking to stay off the roads. Or rather, Chandra veered off into the brush and Gideon simply followed without protest. That was agreement enough for her - and frankly, she still didn’t feel like talking to him. She preferred to fume silently while tromping down the underbrush. So they kept to the forests, not moving in any particular direction except away from the ruins of Velrav’s castle.

Occasionally they would pass a village in the distance, fire flickering among the trees, interrupted by shadows as people moved back and forth, coming out of their houses to see what was happening. They could feel the change as well. As they travelled and time passed, the mood lifted so that each village seemed more joyous than the last. Soon the firelight was accompanied by the sounds of singing, even musical instruments. Thinking of the wise woman’s village, and how everyone had seemed huddled and fearful, keeping to themselves, Chandra wondered how long it had been since this had happened, since people came out and gathered in celebration of something. She thought about the little children and even the adults who had all grown up without ever knowing the happiness of a festival or even the comfort of a warm night with a fully belly. She thought about the wise woman herself, and was surprised to find that she didn’t have any ill will for the little girl. After everything that had happened, Chandra still hoped that Falia was one of the people out there tonight, experiencing festivities for maybe the first time in her life. That she was happy.

As they passed by the towns in the distance, Chandra paused and looked out through the trees, thought about going into to one of them to join in. After all, even if much of the danger of the wilds seemed to have disappeared with the curse, a town could still offer food, fire, and roof over their head - comforts that she certainly wouldn’t turn down.

“Don’t.” 

She turned around to look at Gideon, who had been silent since leaving Velrav’s castle. Even in the better light of stars, his face was still impossible to read. “We’ve been here for a few days,” he said quietly. “They lived under this their entire lives. They should be allowed to have this night for themselves, without having to deal with strangers.”

She wanted to stay something snappish, just out of spite. But…

She looked wistfully at the warm glow of the fire and the distance, and saw a small figure pointing up at newly-uncovered stars. Inside, she felt the same way Gideon did. Regardless of what had happened to the two of them, the people of Diraden had suffered under Velrav far more and far longer than they had. She had walked the planes, travelled the Multiverse to see suns rise on distant worlds - most of these people had never seen a sun rise at all. They deserved to experience this with each other. Not outsiders. 

“It wouldn’t be right,” she said, almost to herself. 

Turning away, Chandra continued into the forest, Gideon’s footsteps close behind.

Eventually, after what felt like hours but was probably less time amplified by sore muscles, they spotted a structure in the distance. Approaching, they saw it was the ruins of another castle standing in a clearing. Most of it had been reclaimed by vines, and the roof had long since fallen in, but the outer walls of the keep, at least, were still standing. At the base of what looked like an ancient wall was a stream. It had likely been the source of a moat long in the past, but now flowed through as series of quiet pools where the water had spilled over its manmade banks.

“Chandra, look.” Gideon sounded almost reverent, and she turned where he was pointing at a section of old stonework. It was overgrown with black, wiry coils of ivy. But among them now, Chandra saw the shining green of newly-opened leaves. She reached out to touch one, and if felt almost warm under her fingertips. Looking around with new eyes, she saw that it wasn’t just the ivy; everywhere plants were poking up the layers of dead leaf litter. Pale blades of grass were reaching up out of the ground, shoots had appeared as if from nowhere, and trees carried constellations of new green leaves. There were even small white and blue flowers popping up, mirroring the stars overhead. A wind blew through the clearing, and it was actually _ warm, _and heavy with growing things. No longer a preserved, endless death, the nighttime now felt like a gentle evening in early summer. 

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured.

Gideon nodded. “Diraden is coming back to life.” He had an expression of wonder on his face, and Chandra was struck again by just how different he looked when he wasn’t velied in practiced stoicism. He looked so at peace that she even forgot she was annoyed with him.

“We should stay here tonight,” he said, recovering just a touch of his practical disposition. “It’s got some protection, water, and it seems far enough out of the way that no one will come looking for us.”

“I doubt anyone is looking for us anyway,” Chandra said. “They all seem busy celebrating not living in a perpetual hell anymore.”

Gideon raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you?”

She gave a snort of laughter. “I’d love to celebrate by leaving,” she replied. Reaching out with her senses, she detected a faint trickle of red mana, but not enough yet to attempt to planeswalk. She’d have to wait - her least favorite thing. Probably for the best though, given how shaky and unstable she still felt. Normally she was all for taking action immediately, but since the last planeswalk she’d rushed had led her _ here_, of all the blighted places in the Multiverse… Well, she supposed a few hours to recover wasn’t completely unreasonable. She looked at the smooth surface of the nearest pool. “As it is, I’d settle for getting cleaned up.”

“Agreed.” He looked over at the keep. “You go first. I’ll go inside and do what I can to make us a space to get some rest.” He walked over to a spot where the old walls had partially fallen across the stream, making a bridge of stepping stones, and headed up toward the keep.

Chandra thought about telling him not to look, but honestly, it seemed unnecessary. As soon as he disappeared through the doorway - and there weren’t any immediate shouts of alarm from inside, which she listened for in case there were demon bats or skeleton serpents or something equally Diraden-appropriate - Chandra went down to the water. She knelt down to take a drink from her cupped palm, and realized how incredibly thirsty she actually was. Far past any sense of decorum, she lowered her face like an animal and took deep mouthfuls of cool, clear water, gulping down what felt like days’ worth. Mana work always seemed to dehydrate her, and cutting her shackles off had taken all the effort and focus she could muster. She’d barely had enough left to heat the knife- 

The image of the mad king flashed in her mind, of her forcing the hot knife into his pathetic jellied flesh, of his scream when it burned him-

Chandra shook her head, hard, which caused a whorl of pain to blossom at the back of her skull. _ Don’t think about it. _Anxious to drown the image out, she quickly stripped off what remained of the dress and her undergarments and plunged herself into the water. 

The cold stillness of it hit her skin like a slap, and she yelped involuntarily, but forced herself to fully submerge. She let the chill seep into her, surround her and fill her, let it wipe her mind clean of everything and numb the aches in her body. She stayed under as long as she could, letting the complete silence beneath the surface calm her down as she floated, weightless. Finally, she couldn’t hold her breath any longer and lifted her head with a gasp, taking in a huge lungful of air.

“_ Chandra!” _

Chandra whipped around and saw Gideon standing on the bank of the stream, looking worried. She looked around frantically, expecting danger. “What is it?”

“I -” Gideon paused, frowning. “I heard you yell. I thought…”

“Yell? I didn’t -” She thought for a second, then felt the heat of a blush rise on her water-chilled skin. “Oh. The water was cold.”

She saw him visibly sigh with relief. “Ah. That’s good. I was worried for a moment...” He trailed off, then abruptly turned his head, looking up and away at some distant treetop.

“What? That I was going to drown in a four foot pond?” Chandra said sarcastically, rolling her eyes. As she did, she glanced down. And suddenly remembered she was naked. 

For the second time in minutes, she yelped involuntarily.

“Back off!” she snapped, cheeks blazing with embarrassment as she splashed water at him like an intrusive dog. “Go...sit back there on that rock!” 

The rock was actually a crumbling retaining wall, but he didn’t correct her and moved obediently away, taking a seat on the broken stones with his back to her. Still flustered, Chandra concentrated on cleaning up, scrubbing vigorously at her skin. There were plenty of injuries to examine, unfortunately. A large multi-colored bruise on her stomach where Velrav had kicked her. The bite wound on her forearm, which she scrubbed at with a extra sense of disgust. Clean, sharp cuts on her palms from grabbing the sural. Despite not being able to see it, she could feel that the wound on the back of her head was likely no better. Still, letting the cool water flow over her injuries soothed them, numbing her pain and washing away the detritus. She was slightly sickened by the amount of dark effluvia that oozed off her body as a whole, and realized belatedly that she had been walking around all night with her entire upper body drenched in Velrav’s blood and gore.

_ Good thing we didn’t go to that village or they’d probably have put an arrow in me. _

Still, she felt a sense of relief as the cloud of black murk slipped away from her, carried off by the gentle current. Eventually, the water ran clear around her, and she finally felt clean again. Remembering Gideon, she glanced up to see that he was still dutifully facing away from her - in fact, he looked like he hadn’t moved a muscle. She noted that, even covered in his own share of blood and dirt, sitting on a broken down spit of stonework in the middle of a forest, Gideon still sat with his back straight enough to pass inspection. 

Chandra shook her head, wondering what was wrong with some people, and clambered out of the water. She wrung her hair out as best she could and made an attempt to dry off using the dress, then slipped into the plain shift she had worn underneath. It was thin, but it was the cleanest and most intact thing she had, so it would have to do. Crossing the stones, she walked up behind Gideon. “You can take your turn now,” she told him.

He turned and glanced at her cautiously, as if she might still be naked as part of some sort of trick, which made Chandra wish she had done it just to fluster him. Sadly, a missed opportunity to put a chink in that unruffled armor of his. Blissfully unaware of her vengeful fantasies, Gideon got to his feet and walked down to the water. Chandra took his spot, settling herself onto the stone and drumming her heels. She heard a quiet liquid sound as he stepped into the water, an intake of breath at the cold.

_ I shouldn’t look. _

Gideon definitely hadn’t looked at her; she knew that with absolute certainty. She snorted. No, she was sure he was far too upstanding and righteous for that. _But then we can’t all be automatons who just do everything we’re told, _she thought with a disdainful sniff. Admittedly, spying on him would be a little rude...but it was also tempting to see what might be under that guarded exterior. And he’d seen _her_ bathing when he ran out to see what she was yelling about...true, he’d looked away as soon as things settled, but fair was fair regardless. And besides, Gideon was rigid and annoying, so who could blame her, really?

Chandra looked.

Gideon stood in the stream with his back to her, water just above his knees, his body outlined by moonlight. She could see illuminated lines of muscle, smooth and strong under cedar-colored skin. He was surprisingly unmarked by scars for someone so clearly accustomed to combat; the only injuries Chandra could see were the recent ones, a handful of dark lines and smudged bruises. Broad, powerful shoulders, dark hair trailing loose down his back, lean waist. Her eyes kept sliding downward… Not bad, she had to admit. As she watched, he stepped forward into deeper water and ducked briefly under, resurfacing and running his hands through thick strands of wet hair. She wondered what it would feel like to wrap her fingers into those dark tangles and grab a handful, pulling him close - 

Chandra snapped back around, telling herself it was because she didn’t want to get caught looking. Despite a breeze wicking water coolly off her skin, she felt more than warm enough now. Forcing herself to take a deep breath, she looked out at her surroundings, concentrating on the tower, the trees, the landscape, anything. Actually, she was surprised to find that the world around was worth seeing. Grass was now everywhere, as thick and lush as after a summer rain, and the trees were all crowded with green, the pale shades of new buds accenting a blanket of mature emerald, as if the plants had been alive for months. Along the walls and ruins of the keep, a glossy covering of ivy had become so thick that in many places it obscured the ancient stone. And everywhere, a riots of white and blue wildflowers. As she watched, Chandra was entranced to find that they were coming up so fast that she could actually see the buds untwisting into full bright blossoms right in front of her. She and Gideon weren’t the only ones trying to clean themselves of the rot and decay that had hung over this place - after being dead for so long, Diraden was apparently making up for lost time. 

Usually waiting around was Chandra’s least favorite thing. But now she felt almost peaceful, sitting quietly, watching the living world unfold itself and listening to Gideon splash around in the pool. She didn’t look again - although she didn’t forget what she’d seen either.

After a bit, she heard Gideon get out. Even knowing he was probably approaching, she was still a little startled when he walked up behind her. For a big man he was shockingly quiet on his feet, like a panther. Turning, she saw that he hadn’t donned his shirt and his torso was now bare, his chest darkened by a light covering of hair. Up close she could see that he really didn’t have any scars, his skin as unmarred as polished wood except for the damage of the last few days. Looking at him sidelong as he moved, she wondered if his heiromancy included some kind of advanced healing magic that left no trace. 

While she was lost in reverie - about the smoothness of his tawny skin, firm blocks of muscle underneath, the way he made no sound when he moved - he sat down next to her, placing something between them. She blinked, her mind reluctantly changing tack, and looked down at her dress and his shirt. Or what remained of them.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted the dress - in case you were cold.”

She _ was _ the smallest bit chilled with her wet skin and hair in the breeze, but she thought about where the dress had come from and what she had been through in it and shuddered, the memories making her far colder than the night air. 

“No,” she said, shaking her head, “I’ll pass. There’s not enough left of it to do much good anyhow.”

He nodded, and with a practiced motion began tearing up both garments, the shirt into long strips and the dress into wider sheets. After a moment she realized he was making bandages. He folded a patch of dress into a pad and placed it over his injured forearm, checking the size, then put it back and began lightly wrapping the strips around it to measure the proper length - awkwardly, with one hand. While he portioned out the dressings, she got a good look at his wounds. Clean and free of matted blood, she could see now that he bore a neat, even pattern of crisscrossing cuts running from his inner elbow to his wrist, the skin around the wounds an angry red. Chandra’s throat tightened as she realized that Velrav must have sliced into his arm one cut at a time, carving a pattern of shallow, overlapping slashes that would bleed freely. Now that it was clean, it didn’t look as deep or dangerous as it had when he had been on the slab and the blood was flowing - but it did look terribly painful. 

Even though it was clearly an unwieldy process to do one-handed, Gideon hadn’t asked her for assistance or even looked at her. She remembered her stony refusal to help him bandage the wound in the first place back at the castle. _ No wonder he hasn’t said anything. _She felt a hard twinge of guilt. After all, if he hadn’t fought to get her the keys she would have been trapped in that dungeon still. He had focused on helping her even while being dragged away to his own execution, and she wouldn’t even help him tend an injury. She wasn’t even sure why she got so upset with him back there... 

Chandra got up and moved to Gideon’s injured side, picking up the pad of dress fabric and laying it over his wound, holding it in place. He became very still for a moment when she touched his arm, but let her do it without resistance. After she had it positioned, she took his other hand and placed it on top, holding it steady, while she began wrapping the bandage around his arm. 

“Twist the bandage when you go over the top,” he said. His voice was quiet, but it was the first thing either of them had said in some time, and it sounded loud in the hushed night air. And of course, he had to spend those first words telling her what to do. She gave him a look, and he shrugged apologetically. “It helps hold it in place if you do it that way.”

Chandra fixed with him with a withering glare, doing as he instructed but somewhat less gently than a moment ago. If it was uncomfortable, he didn’t complain at least, but her attitude toward him had already swung right back around to annoyance. Somehow, discovering that he was correct about the bandages made her feel even less charitable. 

_ Gods, why is he so damn irritating? _

And why did she even care? He was just some bounty hunter who was on an errand to bother her, bring her to justice, wag his finger at her - something, she didn’t even know. He was uptight and boring anyway. Well, not boring exactly, more frustrating. Like a jar that might have something interesting inside it, but that she couldn’t open. She wasn’t exactly sure what she thought was under that stoic facade that would be interesting...but that was beside the point. It wasn’t like she had any obligation to please him, so why did she even care what he said and did or anything about him? Why did she care enough to find him so infuriating? 

_ Because he’s attractive? _

Chandra dismissed that with a snort, which probably sounded both huffy and sort of crazy to Gideon, since he couldn’t hear the talk she was having with herself inside her head. _ Too bad, he’ll just have to be confused. It’s his fault this is happening anyway. _And it wasn’t because he was attractive either, she decided. True, he was appealing as men went - muscular and athletic, and strong. If you were interested in that kind of thing, of course. But lots of people looked decent enough, and they didn’t make her mad enough to spit every time they opened their mouth.

_ Because he’s self-righteous? _

Maybe. Although if she was being completely honest he wasn’t as bad as some. He _ did _keep telling her to do this or not do that, which was an insufferable nuisance. And when he used that deliberately emotionless tone it felt like a condescending parent explaining to their child what they had done wrong, and it made her want to set his hair on fire. But despite being a little grating, he didn’t really act superior about it, or present it as some sort of holier-than-thou piety like Walbert did, or others like him. And he might be critical of her actions, but he didn’t treat her like an inferior or a lesser person.

_ Because he’s right? _

The thought crept in so slowly that she didn’t notice it coming until it pounced.

Chandra felt like someone had doused her with ice water. She hated his corrections, his suggestions, the placid way he pointed things out - and partly it was the _ way _ he did it, his instance on being so damn aloof, as if he was apart from all of this, as if it didn’t touch him or matter to him. But what if the only reason she cared about what he had to say was because what he said made a sort of sense? Including that she’d made decisions that could have been better...and some that had led to outright disaster. And she hated, hated, _ hated _ to even think about that, but when he had the audacity to point it out it forced her to think about it. And then she got angry at him - because otherwise the only person left to get angry at would be herself.

It was a line of thinking so surprising that she stopped wrapping the bandages, her hands hovering over Gideon’s forearm as she stared unseeing into the middle distance. She didn’t realize she’d stopped until he asked if she was alright.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she heard herself say distantly. She looked down at her hands, and took a deep breath. “I think…” She gritted her teeth. “I wanted to say that...I’m sorry. About this. About everything. I didn’t mean for it to happen, and I didn’t mean for you to get involved. I mean, you _ shouldn’t _ have gotten involved, and if you’d minded your own business neither of us would be in this mess -” She stopped herself, pressed her eyes shut and made herself refocus. _ Deep breath Chandra, you can do this. _ “But that’s not the point. I messed some things up too, and you got hurt trying to help me, and I didn’t want that. So I’m sorry.”

There was a very long silence next to her. After too much nothing for her to stand it, she risked a glance at Gideon. He was staring at her, mouth slightly open, looking utterly poleaxed.

_ He’s speechless. Almost worth it just for that. _

“I - um.” He coughed awkwardly, and visibly shook himself out of his stunned state. “It’s okay. And thank you, for saying that. I know it wasn’t easy-”

“It’s literally the worst thing that’s happened to me today,” Chandra said flatly. But after a second she gave a small smile, eliciting a chuckle from Gideon. To her surprise she actually felt a little better about everything. She didn’t even try to pull away when he took her arm to look at her bite wound. Checking it for herself, she saw that even after cleaning in the pond it was an ugly mess, dark clotting within the semicircle of puncture wounds and a puffy array of greenish-blue bruising on the surrounding skin. She also noticed how small her wrist looked in Gideon’s hand, and was surprised at how gentle his grip was as he turned the injury toward himself. He sucked his teeth and took another torn swath of dress, pressing it to the wound as he grabbed a strip of bandage and began winding it around her arm. 

Although she still didn’t like being given instructions on something as simple as tying a bandage, she did have to admit it was coming from a place of practiced expertise as he bound the wound. _ A man with no scars, a terrifyingly dangerous weapon, obviously lots of experience patching people up, who hunts down women for breaking the law but then tries to rescue them when they get in trouble. _ Not for the first time, she found herself wondering if that banal exterior was to hide something genuinely fascinating. And she wanted to laugh - because come on. _ Gideon, fascinating? Please. _ But then she found herself watching his hands as he worked, feeling his fingers move deftly over her skin in a mix of strength and control and surety, and acknowledged that...maybe. Not _ fascinating _ perhaps, but there could be something in there after all.

As he knotted the bandage Chandra couldn’t help wincing. Gideon’s eyes flicked over to her. “Sorry. I wish it was a more comfortable process, but bite wounds are always messy. You’ll want a real healer to look at it - not just this field patch-job.”

Chandra shrugged, feigning nonchalance as the uncomfortable pressure eased down to a throbbing sensation. “Velrav got way worse than a bite and a few bruises out of this. I’d say everything turned out well enough.” She thought about Velrav’s corpse at the bottom of a rubble pile. Exactly what he deserved, and what she had promised herself would happen from the moment he kidnapped her and Gideon. She held up her hand, ticking off points on her fingers. “We’re free, bad guy’s dead, the curse is lifted, and the world is saved.” She grinned and held up her bandaged arm. “A little nip on the wrist is a small price to pay for a flawless rescue like that.”

Gideon held up his own injured forearm. “A little closer than I’d like,” he said, but as she was about to protest he smiled back. “I’m kidding. You were great.” He blew out a relieved breath. “I am very glad you showed up when you did though. Things were getting...weird.”

“Weird?” she repeated, looking at him askance.

He raised an eyebrow. “Intimate and...uncomfortable. I’m not sure if Velrav became this way because of the curse or if he was always like this, but he was not a well man.”

Chandra thought about Velrav running his tongue over Gideon’s neck, and his mouth smeared in blood when she arrived in the ritual room. Though the prince hadn’t touched her, she’d spent enough time in his oozing presence to know that he wouldn’t just kill if he could torture and violate instead. She suppressed a shudder. “Not surprising. I got there as fast as I could. At least you got me the keys, or else-” Chandra stopped, then shook her head. No point dwelling on_ that. _She looked back over at Gideon and gave him a playful chuck on the arm. “It was a good team effort.”

“...Yes. It was.” For a moment his face took on a distant look, as if he was somewhere far away. Then he turned back to her. “How did you do it?”

She held up the piece of fire quartz, which she’d reclaimed from the knife. “I used this to cut my cuffs. It can carry just a spark of red mana, so I used the torches to fill it and-”

“No,” he said, looking at her more intently now. “I mean how did you break the curse?”

Chandra stiffened, a sudden cold shock flashing through her. Her mind flooded with shrieking, the smell of seared too-soft flesh. “I...it must have happened when I killed Velrav,” she mumbled. 

His eyes narrowed. “The curse was broken before you got to the room. I _ felt _it break; I saw Velrav’s power leave him.”

Chandra involuntarily leaned back from him, as if physical space would create a barrier, give her time to think of something. “I don’t know what you-”

“Chandra.” Gideon’s voice, his face, his body had all become very still. “What did you do?”

“I…” She looked looked down at her hands. She felt strange and numb, and they looked like someone else’s. She remembered seeing them gripping the handle of the white-hot knife, pulling it free of the body. “I killed the king.” 

“What?” Gideon looked over at her, his expression...horrified? Disgusted? Furious? She couldn’t tell. “You - he was a sick old man. Chandra, he was as much a victim as we were, more so, and you killed him?”

“I didn’t want to,” she whispered.

“But you did!” He was on his feet now, face like a thundercloud. “He was practically helpless and you what, you sacrificed him to get away? So you could leave Diraden?”  
“There was no other way,” she breathed, hugging her knees.

“You could have found another way!” he yelled, gesturing expansively. “You could have escaped, figured something out. I told you Chandra, I didn’t want any innocent people to die...why didn’t you just get yourself out like I said? You could have regrouped, made a plan - why didn’t you?” He stepped closer to her. “Why didn’t you just leave?”

Chandra jumped to her feet. “_ Because I didn’t want you to die you big stupid asshole!” _Hot, humiliating tears were streaming down her face, boiling out of the cauldron of anger and grief and a sick, twisting horror inside of her at what she had done. Gideon was clearly taken aback at her outburst; she was practically screaming in his face but much too far gone to stop now as everything came pouring out. “Because this was my fault, because you were going to die because of me, because it was the only way to end it!”

“I-”

“Shut up!” she screamed. “Just shut up! How _ dare _ you? Do you know what it was like? To be all alone and only have one way out and to have it be that? Do you think I _ wanted _ to kill him? You _ bastard! _ ” Chandra pounded a fist against Gideon’s chest, not noticing that her wound reopened, not noticing how much it hurt because the pain inside was so much worse, so deep and dark that everything was falling into it. “He told me to do it, wanted me to do it, and I said no, _ I said no, _and I wanted to leave...” Tears filled her eyes, turning her vision into a shapeless blur; she squeezed her eyes shut until they hurt. A wracking sob tore loose from her chest and with it the last of her strength. She sank down to her knees in the the grass.

“I didn’t want to,” she sobbed, her voice raw and broken, barely making it out of her burning throat. “I didn’t want to do it. But he was the key to breaking the curse, to stopping Velrav from killing you, to...to everything. And he told me I would have to do it, that I _ needed _to do it to save everyone. To save you.” She struggled to breathe, her entire body convulsing. “And I didn’t want to believe him but he was right, and it was the only way to end the curse and I was the only one who could do it, and he wanted me to and I-I-” 

She couldn’t get any more words out; her throat had locked around them, hard and tight. Her mouth was open but no sound came out, just the painful hitching of her throat as tears poured down her cheeks. It was all she could do to keeping breathing. She hugged her arms around herself to keep from breaking apart. She had only felt so desperately lost and alone once before, on the day she sparked - and this time there was nowhere to go. She was stranded here, face to face with what had happened. What she had done. Awful hollowness yawned open inside her, threatening to do what Diraden had failed to: swallow her into the dark and snuff out her light in a way that would never be rekindled...

She felt strong arms wrap around her. Chandra fought, lashing out with her fists, pounding on muscle and bone in blind rage, but she was held fast. The fight went out of her and she tucked into a ball, head in her hands, and sobbed noiselessly. Then she was being rocked back and forth, and felt a hand stroking her hair in a way that no one had done since she was a child. Pressed into a warm unyielding embrace, she sensed finally that it wasn’t keeping her in, but keeping everything else out. Not a trap - a protection.

Chandra wept until she felt utterly empty.

It felt like a long, hard climb, coming back to herself. When she rejoined reality, she was crumpled up against Gideon’s chest. His chin rested on top of her head. Breathing quietly, she could hear his heart beating. It was so slow that she wondered how long they had been like this, if he’d fallen asleep. 

“Chandra?”

She tensed, ready to shove herself away from him at the first hint of chastisement.

“I’m very sorry,” he sorry. Unexpected. She stayed still like a deer, ready to bolt at a wrong move, listening to his voice echo through his chest. “I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I wasn’t thinking about you or what you had to go through…” He sighed. “I just wasn’t thinking. I had no right to judge you like that; I know you were in a hard situation, and I wasn’t there. I should never said those things to you, and I’m sorry.”

“It was the only way,” Chandra whispered.

She felt him nod, his face moving against her hair. “I know it was. And I know you had to make a horrible decision.”

“It was awful.” Her voice sounded strained, even to her. “He wanted me to do it, and so I thought it would be easier, but -” She couldn’t say any more.

“It’s always awful, up close like that,” he murmured. “I’ve seen enough of it to know… That’s why I got so upset; I just don’t want anyone to die for me. Not ever.” He shifted her, easily moving her weight. “But I know…” He exhaled tightly, and she could almost feel his pained acceptance. “I know it’s what had to be done. You didn’t have a choice.”

Chandra was quiet for a moment.

“Everyone needed it to happen,” she said slowly. “Not just you or me, it was this whole place and even him - everyone needed it to end; things just couldn’t go on that way. But…” Chandra felt his arms and his chest and his chin, forming a warm safe cradle for her, and wondered if it was about to go away. “But I did it for you.” She felt Gideon stiffen against her, but he didn’t let go. She let the words tumble out, before she could change her mind. “I was thinking about what you said, about not letting innocent people get hurt. And I realized _ you _ were innocent, that you only got captured because you tried to save me. You could have just let Velrav’s riders take me; _ you _ could have been the one to escape and form a plan or whatever… But you didn’t, or couldn’t. Just like I couldn’t leave you there. And when they took you away, I -” Chandra swallowed a hard lump in her throat. Taking a deep breath, she leaned back and looked at him, wanting to say it to his face. “Everything here was wrong, twisted, set up so someone had to die who didn’t deserve it. And I didn’t want that someone to die because of me, because of something I did. So I just… I couldn’t let that person be you.”

Gideon looked at her, and she looked back, willing him to understand and searching his face for a sign of acceptance. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes. “Chandra - I hate this. I hate how things happened here, and I hate that anyone had to die, and I hate that you had to be the one to do it. But… the other day, when I said you didn’t care about anyone but yourself, that you weren’t a good person.” He opened his eyes, downcast, not looking at her. “I was wrong.” He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “I was wrong about you.”

Chandra stared up at him, his face so serious and forthright and sincere. His eyes were silver-blue in the moonlight. Without thinking she leaned in and kissed him.

He pulled back, instinctive, startled, and for a moment she was terrified he would push her away. But then he leaned in and kissed her back and everything else fell away. She pushed against him, tasting his mouth, and when his lips parted under her attentions she slipped her tongue in and met his and found reciprocation. As they kissed she took deep breaths through her nose, drinking in his smell like water. It was heavy, masculine, like steel and sweat and oiled leather armor. The smell of a soldier. Never something Chandra had wanted before now - but this was different. All she knew in this moment was that she was here in this place with the one person she had met in the entire Multiverse who shared her experience, who might know how she felt, how she had felt her entire life. They had endured this place together, fought and sacrificed for each other, shared comfort in impossibly dark places - if that wasn’t enough, then what was? Gideon had been there when she needed him. 

And now her need for him had transformed into something intimate and eager. She ran her hand over his chest, feeling soft hair under her fingers, then up the strong lines of his neck, over the rough stubble on his jaw, and finally into his thick dark hair. The soft black tangles were still damp from washing, she buried her fingers in them and let the strands twist around her hands and gripped them and turned his face toward her. With a hold on him now she became more insistent, lips and tongue and teeth all searching, starving. 

Her body was filled with fire - not the destructive fire of a boom or the gentle fire of a hearth, but the wild, desirous flames of revelries and fertility festivals. And fire demanded fuel. She leaned in along his cheek, his hair brushing her face, and nipped his ear - not too hard, but not lightly either - and was rewarded with the sound of a sharp breath, and then his mouth on her neck. Her eyes rolled back, fluttered shut as his tongue slipped against the soft skin under her jaw, and she tilted her chin to give him better access. She felt his teeth around her throat, teasing and dangerous, and pressed against him with a moan, tightening her grip on his hair and digging the nails of her other hand into his back.

Taking her bearings, Chandra saw that the crumbling keep wall was just behind Gideon. With a motion only somewhat hindered by aches and bruises she turned so she was straddling his waist and pushed him back against the ivy-covered stone. She leaned in, acutely aware of everywhere their bodies touched; her thighs alongside his waist, her stomach flush against the muscled ridges of his torso, her arms around his neck, his nose and stubbled chin and warm breath brushing along the crook of her throat. His hands rested lightly on the small of her back, almost hesitant, as if he was uncertain whether he was allowed to handle her. 

It was an unfamiliar sensation for Chandra - she’d had other lovers, of course, boys who she’d taken into haylofts or storerooms and had been a rush of frantic, uncoordinated groping and diving between her legs as quickly as possible. Seeing as she had done much the same to them, it seemed all well and good enough at the time. However, with Gideon there was restraint and intention, a _ deliberateness _ to everything, even this. She found it both exciting and frustrating at the same time; exciting to have such full and focused attention on her, and frustrating because she wanted more. She knew there was something just beneath the surface of that control - she could feel it in the tension running through his body, the fast, constricted sound of his breathing, the low noises he was trying to keep clamped down in his chest. It was something fierce and animalistic, something she wanted, and by the gods she was going to get it. Reaching down, she defiantly stripped off her shift and sat naked astride him, her hair tumbling down her shoulders, her skin silver-pale in the moonlight against his tawny body. She took his hands and raised them up along her torso, moving to place them on her breasts.

To her surprise he resisted, taking her wrists gently but firmly, stopping her.

“Chandra...maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

She stared at him, confused, shocked. He _ clearly _ wanted her. His face alone would have been enough to tell her that, the roughness in his voice when he spoke. And with her legs around his waist she could feel his body responding too - avidly, insofar as she could judge from past experience. She could even feel a slight tremor in his hands as he held hers, a flash of barely-controlled desire. 

“What? Why not?” Her body was feverish, anxious. There was a hot ache building in her belly now, and being stopped this abruptly made her feel a kind of distress that was both emotional and visceral.

“It’s just -” He swallowed hard, trying to focus. “There are things you don’t know about me. About why I was looking for you on Kephalai. Things I’m not sure you would be happy about. And I don’t want to take advantage of you, to do something you wouldn’t agree to if you knew-”

“You’re not taking advantage of me,” she panted, rolling her hips against him, drawing a groan from his lips. “Like I said before: while we’re here, this whole thing is a team effort. We’re in this together.”

He shook his head, gritting his teeth as he tried to maintain control. “Chandra, you don’t know what you’re-”

“_ I don’t care.” _ She took a deep, shaking breath, steadying herself. “I don’t care,” she repeated, her voice sounding at least a little more even. “Look around you. I have had just about the worst day of my life. We were both almost killed. We saved the world, and now it’s coming back to life all around us.” She stared at him, willing him to understand her. “Gideon, don’t you get it? Kephalai doesn’t _ matter_. Tomorrow doesn’t _ matter_. The past and the future and everything else, all it does is get in the way. The only thing that matters is here, and now, and the two of us.” She pulled one of her hands loose from his grip, laid it against his cheek. “Stop thinking. Stop worrying. Just...just be here with me, okay?”

A look of intense conflict moved across his face, considering, deliberating, fighting with himself. Then he closed his eyes and leaned into her palm, his facial hair rough and refreshing on her skin. 

“Okay,” he murmured. “We’ll talk later then.”

“Later,” she whispered, moving her hand and placing her fingers over his lips. 

Without opening his eyes, he took her fingers into his mouth, sucking her fingertips. She moaned and pressed against him reflexively, leaning her breasts into his open hands. He squeezed gently, kneading her soft flesh; she gave a small yelp when he rolled her nipple between his fingers. The noise made him pause, but she gasped out the words “Don’t you dare stop,” and he didn’t, pinching lightly and bearing down until she made the noise again, rapturous. She pulled her fingers out of his mouth and slid her hands down his body, tracing every ridge and valley of muscle, every curve of his form, reaching down and stroking him lightly through the material of his pants. He twitched and made an animal noise that she found immensely pleasing. Pulling at the waistband of his pants, Chandra worked on removing the last barrier. She felt almost beside herself now, a ravenous, desperate longing that clawed at her belly. Way past arousal, she needed him now, needed to be with him wholly, physically, and let the act drive everything else out of her mind. Her breathing was rapid, and her fingers pulled at the drawstrings of his pants with a franticness that made her clumsy, but she didn’t care, she just needed him, _ now _…

Gideon pulled her close, up onto her knees and against his chest, pulling her hands away. She made an involuntary sound of distress and tried to wriggle free, but he took one of her nipples into his mouth and sucked, _ hard_, and that stopped her, holding her in place. She wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him; he reached down and she felt him take his pants off, then reposition himself under her. Her stroked a hand along the inside of her thigh, then slipped his fingers between her legs and she pushed down against him, agitated, trying to get relief. She heard a sound and was surprised to discover, through muddled thoughts, that it was her own voice, begging in a tone that was almost a sob, “please please please.” 

He kissed her collar bone just under her chin. “Okay. Easy,” he murmured, his lips moving softly against her skin in a way that for some reason she couldn’t explain made her want to cry. “I’m right here; you’ll be alright.” He shifted a little and she felt the tip of his erection slip between her legs, parting her lips there and it was more than she could take. In one instinctive motion she pressed down, smoothly sheathing his entire length inside her.

Gideon gasped and his hips bucked upward, pushing deeper into her. She gripped him tight with her thighs and fell forward against him, his chest hair tickling the soft skin of her breasts, her hands clutching his back like a liferaft in a rough sea. His body was steady and warm, and she embraced him as she began rocking her hips, sliding up and down his shaft. His manhood was like the rest of him, thick, sturdy, and she revelled in the feel of it parting her, her body opening like the flowers around them. Bearing down, she took him as deep as he could. Gideon made an animal sound, almost a growl, and she felt his fingers dig into her hips and buttocks, guiding her, matching his pace to hers. He moved underneath her like a ship on the tides, undulating, his stomach muscles flexing against her belly with every thrust. 

Now at last Chandra saw the facade come away, saw the raw thirst of desire written across his features, felt him let go of his ironclad self control and plunge into her with rough animal grunts. She felt herself rise to him, responding in kind, bucking her hips against his in a quickening rhythm as she leaned in and ran her tongue along his neck, tasting a hint of sweat and animalism and something indescribable but uniquely Gideon. He made a low noise deep in his chest and leaned in along her cheek, nuzzling his face into her hair, and breathed a word into her ear, warm and sultry. 

“_ Chandra. _” 

Of everything that any lover had ever done for her, nothing had affected her like hearing him say her name. Her body tightened around him, embracing him, and the bright burn of her arousal surged into a towering inferno. She put her palms on his chest and shoved him roughly back against the ivy and stone, digging her fingers through his chest hair and into the unmarked skin beneath. She could feel that her expression was wild, feral, and she didn’t care.

“Say it again,” she panted.

“Chandra,” he murmured, and at the sound of the word on his lips she groaned, pushed into him hard, relishing the fullness of him inside her.

“Yes,” she said, moving faster. “Again.”

He slid his hand up over her throat and ran his thumb along her jawline, she turned and caught it in her teeth, biting down just hard enough for him to react. “Chandra,” he intoned, leaning in, slipping his hand behind her head and pulling her face close to his, his lips touching hers, saying her name again and again like a mantra.

“Chandra Chandra Chandra.”

Her breath was coming in hard, fast gasps now as the sensation in her body built and twisted on itself. She felt something inside of her tightening like a coil of wire being wound on a spool, tension growing higher and higher and higher. With what little wherewithal she still possessed, she could sense that Gideon was in the same state as she was. She slipped her hand down between their bodies, between her legs, and stroked the soft bud of flesh at the center of the sensations coursing through her. 

“A little more,” she pleaded, breathless - and gods bless him, he had a little more to give her, wrapping a hand around her hip and pulling them hard together without disrupting her pleasuring herself. His other hand knotted into her hair and pulled her head back and away, and leaned in and kissed the soft skin behind her ear, hard and hot and rough. She grabbed his forearm with her free hand to anchor herself and felt the broad muscles flexing underneath her hand as Gideon gripped her hair tight, and that feeling was just enough to bring her over the edge. 

She finished with a strained cry, baying out his name as waves of intensity rolled through her body. He must have been holding out for her because he followed her into the depths a moment later with a long growl through his teeth, holding her tightly against him as his body shook under her. She threw her arms around him as her orgasm crescendoed and then gently subsided into quiet stillness, leaving them tangled in an intimate embrace. She let herself collapse against him and stayed that way for long moments as aftershocks rippled through both their bodies and even after. She heard the breeze moving through the grass, now lush and thick around them, heard the deep, heavy sounds of Gideon breathing as he rested his forehead against the curve of her shoulder.

Finally - _ finally_, after everything that had happened and all the anguish and fear and rage - Chandra felt better. She felt Gideon under her, hot and sweaty and trembling the tiniest bit, and felt pleased with herself and the world at large. With a happy sigh, she turned her head to the east, where the sky was rapidly growing lighter.

“Mmmm,” she mumbled, her mind warm and heavy and golden. “Look. Sun’s coming up.” She felt Gideon’s head turn on her shoulder, rolling to watch the growing light.

“Thank goodness,” he breathed, voice still somewhat gravelly. “Looks like the world is saved after all.” He flopped back against the stonework and closed his eyes, letting his head rest in a curtain of ivy, idly running his fingers through her hair. Then he frowned, although his eyes remained shut, and tilted his head a little as if listening to something. “Chandra...do you feel something?”

Chandra snorted. “Yeah - you,” she said rocking against him.

“No, not that,” he said, putting a hand on her thigh to hold her still and opening his eyes, looking toward the sunrise. “It feels like -”

And then Chandra felt it too - a surge of fire and heat like a pyroclastic blast crashing over her, through her, as the sun burst above the horizon and red mana came surging back into the plane. In the split-second before it hit she tried desperately to brace for it in some way, but she had never tried to take in _ less _ mana before and it poured into every part of her body unchecked until it burst from her very being. She saw flames roar to life over her hair and ignite on her skin and grow and swell as the inrushing of mana overwhelmed her, overflowed out of her in an incandescent wave of fire and heat. It filled her mind with blinding red like the open heart of a volcano, and she was submerged in it, drowning in it, intoxicated by burning red bliss…

It took her long moments to remember Gideon was there. When she did her elation turned to panic so quickly she was nearly physically sick.

_ Oh gods I’ve killed him! _She didn’t want to look, her mind picturing the unrelenting horror of incinerating her lover while they were bound together, recoiling in abject horror at the thought, but her eyes were already open and she couldn’t avoid seeing what was in front of her and she glanced down…

Gideon was underneath her, looking very alarmed - but whole, and unharmed. A sheath of golden-white light covered him like a second skin, rippling slowly like light coming through water. Chandra had never seen anything like it before, but whatever it was, it had apparently protected him. Or maybe the blast wasn’t as bad as she thought. Cautiously optimistic, she looked around.

They were surrounded by a twenty-foot circle of charred stone, blackened plants, and scorched earth. Her mouth fell open. _ Nope, it’s worse than I thought. _

“Chandra,” Gideon said. His voice sounded strained, as if he were struggling to remain calm. She turned to him and realized that she was still actively on fire, her hair dancing with flames and her blazing hands sizzling against whatever barrier was shielding him from her.

_ Does it cover his entire body? _she wondered, then quickly decided it must, since he wasn’t screaming.

“_ Chandra. _”

“Sorry. Yes?”

“_ Please get off of me.” _

“Oh right.” She lifted herself up and swung her leg off of him. He looked - shaken, his skin gone somewhat ashen under its normal tan hue. She got to her feet and focused, slowly reigning in her fire and bring it down. Although she didn’t really want to; she had missed the feeling of mana in her veins more than she even realized. With a sigh, she snuffed out the last embers in her hair and turned back to Gideon, who was getting unsteadily to his feet. 

_ He’s much less imposing when he’s scared and naked, _she thought with a little smirk.

“Are you alright?” she asked out loud.

He stared at her. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I’m fine. Thanks.”

She looked back at him and raised her hands helplessly. “Sorry. That was an accident; it doesn’t usually happen like that.”

“How fortunate,” he said flatly. 

She ignored his tone, breathing in and drinking deep of the feeling of mana surrounding her, rushing through her veins once again. “So, are you ready to leave this damned place?”

She saw his jaw clench, as he was struggling to maintain his composure. “I am,” he said, his words clipped, “but you just incinerated all of our clothing.”

She looked around. There was nothing but drifting black ash anywhere near where they had been lying… she supposed that yes, some of it used to be her shift and Gideon’s pants. _ Ah well. _Although she noticed that his sural, set aside by the stone wall, was still intact. He did too, because he leaned down and grabbed it, using it as best he could to cover his nakedness. Which wasn’t very well, but there was little else he could do. She looked at him and shrugged.

“Well, I was planning to head home to Regatha anyway,” she said casually. “We can both get some clothes there.” He looked like he wanted to add something but she stopped him. “And then we can talk about whatever it is that you so desperately want to say.”

_ Probably ‘Chandra, you burned down the meadow and almost barbecued me while I was naked underneath you.’ _The thought made her chuckle - she had plenty of people lecture her about setting things on fire, but this would be the first time it had happened while naked post-sex. 

He looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Agreed,” he said finally.

Chandra clapped her hands together, focusing the power of the red mana that was returned to her and taking a few deep, steadying breaths. It was easier than it had been before; after scraping and clawing for any hint of mana she now felt spoiled, glutted by it. Planeswalking now should be a piece of cake. And then, once they were back on Regatha, they could sort out this whole mess. _ Once I’m back home, everything will be fine. _

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, and stepped off the world. 


End file.
